Strange Tales #122: It’s… ASBESTOS!!!

Strange Tales #122, page 6, panel 2

Rapidly written by Stan Lee

Speedily sketched by Dick Ayers

Instantly inked by Geo. Bell

Lazily lettered by S. Rosen

Doctor Doom’s trio of master-less henchmen continue to haunt the pages of Strange Tales #122. In a series that boasted the original Plant Man, the Fifth Dimension, the Sorcerer, and the guy who nearly blew up Glendale with a nuclear bomb, it’s quite something that these should be the most tedious, annoying and forgettable villains of this run. Thankfully, in this panel, my interest levels are raised by my favourite word in Stan Lee’s vocabulary:

Asbestos!

This time, it’s an asbestos rope, which the… er… one with the headdress (look, you didn’t expect me to remember their names, did you?) uses to lasso the Human Torch. This rope would go on to have a minor role in the early Marvel Universe, resurfacing in the hands of the Enforcers in the pages of Amazing Spider-Man. It must be the same one – there clearly isn’t a market for mass production!

And what’s that being held in the background?

Check out our coverage of Strange Tales #122 on our thirty-first episode: Just Three Of The Guys, with special guest-host Shawn Engel.